From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

On-line since: 15th January, 2011

120. EL, Hannover, 11-19-'12

One who
begins an esoteric training will, of course, try to get into higher
worlds, but most people anticipate something different from what
often happens there. Many think that the visionary life that must
also begin is the most desirable thing, but an experience of this
isn't the main thing; the important thing is a certain soul
attitude. As soon as an esoteric training has begun, the soul changes
under the influence of exercise that are given an esoteric in
accordance with his individuality. And then the main thing is to pay
attention to such a soul attitude in the finest and subtlest way.

After
the meditation, a meditator must let complete quiet enter his soul.
At first the meditation still plays into his soul like a tone that
slowly subsides. Then this too must disappear from the soul. The
latter must become entirely empty for the reception of spiritual
worlds. Practice this with patience and perseverance. One must remain
quiet even if one experiences nothing for a long time. One must be
glad that one succeeds in being quiet.

Without
knowing it at first, one can experience something in such moments
that are the most productive for development One can have the
feeling: I just experienced something. It can appear as a mere dream,
but experiences can also approach an esoteric in another way. On
getting up in the morn and beginning our daily tasks it may happen
that we suddenly have the feeling: I experienced something now. We
should pay greater attention to these moments, for after awhile,
another feeling will be added; we feel: You didn't think this
thought yourself. It seemed to flit by and it was forgotten right
away again, but it was there, we experienced it. Such an experience
is very important. We should direct our attention to it ever more.
For at this moment, our ordinary ego didn't think — what
thought was the divine thinking that passes through all ages and
eternities. It thinks me — the great world thinking, thinks me.
This is expressed exoterically as: Within your thinking, cosmic
thoughts hold sway. Esoterically one says: It thinks me. So when you
let this mantric verse pass through your soul often, it has a very
strengthening effect on it; this can happen right after meditation or
at any spare moment while you're walking or standing One must
fill the soul completely with thee words and feel the greatest piety.
An esoteric should make it his business never to say, “It
thinks me” as a mere sentence. There's another sentence
we can use in the same way. Here we first have to look back at
ourself. Most people don't understand why blows of destiny hit
them. An esoteric should always keep the karma idea in mind.
It's really so that we are to blame for everything that hit us.
If we let this thought live in us, we gradually get to the point
where we grasp karma, that we become aware of the connections that
exist between the divine spiritual world and us, and of how our
destiny, our karma is wrought out of these sub-depths. For this we
have the second mantric sentence that should live in our soul in the
same way as the first one: It works me; exoterically expressed: World
beings work in your will. As we let the words of this second sentence
pass through our soul, we should feel the holiest awe and reverence,
the deepest devotion. There's also a third sentence. If we let
this work on us, we can gradually get to the point where we feel the
weaving of the divine hierarchies of higher worlds on our soul body.
It weaves me. That's the content of the third mantric sentence,
which we should let work upon our soul in the same way as the first
two. With this sentence, we should feel the greatest thankfulness
towards great, sublime spiritual powers. The exoteric expression of
this sentence is: World forces weave in your feeling.

For
instance, in the exercise: I rest in the Godhead of the world
, we should feel the divine I and not the personal one. Of course, we
can't exclude the word “I,” but it's the
higher, expanded I that should be felt here. The personal ego with
which we live in the physical body must cease at death and pass over
into the higher I. It dies into the world ego: I C M.

Another
feeling we must have is one of powerlessness with respect to divine,
spiritual worlds. We can't preserve our physical body overnight
during sleep, can't keep it from deteriorating. Divine,
spiritual beings do this for us. On awakening, we come back into the
physical body from the spiritual worlds from which we arose;
spiritual forces maintain and form us: E D N. To experience
E D N in the right way, we must fill ourselves with the
thought that everything that we are in thinking, feeling and willing
is given to us by the Godhead: it thinks us, it weaves us, it works
us — we are born from it: Ex Deo nascimur.

We have
darkened this divine soul nature in us during our life through the
incarnations. We've surrounded ourselves with a world of
visions that come from our being and not from primal, divine beings.
Through esoteric life we must press through to the point where when
we get into the spiritual world through death's portal,
we've freed ourselves of this darkening that has enveloped our
whole being like a visionary cloud.

If
we've been successful in this, then after death we'll
become united with the spirituality, the Christ, that flows through
our cosmos. We die into the Christ, I CM — and
thereby we're enabled to suck up pure cosmic forces to build up
a purer corporeality for the next incarnation.

Our
body is given to us from nature's forces; we suck these Father
forces into our being; we come to the Father through the Christ:
“I and the Father are One. No one comes to the Father except
through me.”

We're helped to go on this path through the connection with the
spiritual worlds that we can already find in physical life through
esoteric life and thereby take the spiritual stream that flows
towards us out of spiritual worlds into our intellect and our
morality — and that is the Holy Spirit. P S S R.

It
thinks me: the descent of the spiritual archetype from the Father
forces behind the Zodiac.

It
works me: die into Christ's etheric body that embraces the
zodiac and in

It
weaves me: receive the new thing that's given to us by Christ from the
Father forces.

This is
the same as in the exercise: I am — It thinks — She
feels — He wills.